MORDECAI WU, DISTRICT FOUR

"It'll be okay!" he shouted "It'll be ok!"

It will be ok

It will...

"It will be okay," he says over and over again, repeating it like a mantra as his gnarled hands run themselves down his thighs and over his knees again and again. "It will be okay," he says even though he does not remember what the words mean anymore, even though sometimes he cannot speak for the pain that takes hold of his body and reduces him to sounds so weak that if he had a sense of pride anymore he might feel embarrassed to hear himself. It comforts him somehow to say the words.

He doesn't have anything. Not anymore. They took it from him, his clothing, his name, his dignity, he doesn't exist in the same way that you and I do. He doesn't belong with the humans anymore, they've made him into an animal. When they stripped the flesh slowly from the backs of his hands just to see what would happen they laughed at his screaming and he forgot what his father's voice sounded like.

He does not know why he is here or where he came from. He doesn't even know what year it is or where here is in particular. It's damp, always dripping and he does not know what the sun looks like anymore either. The last time he breathed air that was fresh was six hundred and thirty seven days ago, give or take. He only started making the scratches in the wall after he'd been there some days already, just to hold onto something. He doesn't remember why he draws the line in the brick anymore only that he has to do it. He has to draw them in a straight line side by bloody side so that one day he'll know.

His body is either a work of art or a canvas of unspeakable horror depending on where you're coming from. Some see beauty in the simplest, most brutal of things where some can only find it through understanding and a suitably stubborn attitude. There is no piece of him that has not been tested, been made stronger through pain.

Those long fingers have been broken more than once, each fingernail bloody and weak from having grown back again and again only to be ripped away from the bed and flesh. The knuckles are out of place, as if someone tore them away from each other on purpose and then tried to place them back with little care. The skin up his arms has been burned, stripped, sliced, bitten and pierced too many times to count, his left shoulder dislocated so many times now that it doesn't know how to move without a steady click.

His collarbones protrude from lack of nourishment and from the steady bruising that defaces the bone. A dirty bandage is wrapped around his torso as if it will be successful in holding a ruined rib cage together. In fact, his torso is one of the only pieces of him that is truly beautiful. All along his back, exploding like the offspring of stars come the cigarette burn marks, the spiraling patterns of a true genius intent on perfection. They cover his back like the lights in the sky at night, seemingly as random too unless one were too look closer. A better representation of the milky-way is not often found.

His legs and feet have not gone untouched either. His kneecaps and shins have been broken, the latter again and again. There is no piece of skin that have not been claimed, no bit of him that has not been remade in pain. He does not own all ten toes anymore. Two are missing.

His nose has been broken too many times to count. He's missing two teeth but one isn't so noticeable. It was pulled from the back. His hair is long now, shaggy. It used to be nice once. He barely remembers that when she, his mother would push his hair back from his forehead and kiss him on the cheek. Now it's dirty, tangled, bloody. So far from it's original warm brown that one might think it black. His eyes were lively once, they smiled with his mouth. Now they are dull, they barely see.

He can't remember how to stand tall anymore. He is bent out of shape, can barely stand. They feed him to keep him alive, they keep him alive to torture them, they torture him to see how long he will live. He's made it longer than most. The others died months ago, the last one leaving him quietly, dying of self-imposed starvation. That was how they often went, slowly and all at once.

He was an anomaly. No one else had held on for as long as him. No matter how dearly they held onto life, they could never last long. The horror they were subjected to everyday like clockwork was too much. Most lost their reason for even trying anymore a couple of weeks in, forgetting how to exist because they couldn't remember. They couldn't recall why they were holding on so tightly in the first place.

Wouldn't it be easier to just slip away? To give up?

Time seemed to pass either very slowly here or too fast. It was never long periods of time between the sessions, where they would take him and cut into him. They didn't seem to have a reason for doing so, he had no secrets to hold back, he'd told them everything about his life, anything they might want to know until his voice ran ragged. It was as if the moments when he screamed out these facts about himself was what took the memories away from him, as if he were truly giving them away with each scream that came after.

The smell of salt is the only thing stronger than the smell of blood in the cell he calls a home. It wafts from above, and around. The water that drips from the ceiling has the salt in it too. He knows this, once he was desperate enough to try drinking it and he was sick from it. He used to love the ocean, or at least he's half-certain that he did.

Sometimes he dreams of floating in water and the water covering his face and filling up his lungs.

More often he dreams of a boy that smiles like the sun and inside himself he feels such a longing. His hands curl into fists and he yells in his sleep. "It will be okay," he tells the boy but with every word he says, the boy gets farther and farther from him until he's just a speck in the distance. He wants to protect him. He can protect him if he survives, if he does not struggle when they come for him, if he is complacent and good he can protect the boy in the dream.

"It will be okay," he says, voice staying calm and even despite the approaching footsteps outside of his cell. He brings his knees closer to his chest and drags his fingers along the dirt floor, nails catching on the brickwork beneath. "It will be okay," he repeats as the cell door opens with a soft creak. He doesn't bother glancing upwards as his arms are collected from him and they drag him forward.

"It will be okay," he says as they push him into the chair and they tighten the straps.

The wind has blown through him and he is broken. They've broken him and in comparison to the body the mind is worse off. It is empty, only able to hold onto the most basic of human needs, to breathe, to eat and sleep. To feel pain.

To feel fear.

"It will be okay Tobi, it'll be okay, it'll be okay, it'll be okay, it'll be o-"

Because when
m o r n i n g c o m e s , I
can meet that person